Cole County Youth Day allows middle schoolers to address concerns

Dominique Bell, 5, shoots hoops Saturday with Cole County Youth Day volunteers in Jason Hall at Lincoln University in Jefferson City. The event invited local youth to voice their opinions on what they consider to be important issues in their lives and community.
Dominique Bell, 5, shoots hoops Saturday with Cole County Youth Day volunteers in Jason Hall at Lincoln University in Jefferson City. The event invited local youth to voice their opinions on what they consider to be important issues in their lives and community.

Adults Not Listening.

Not Being Treated Fairly.

Bullying.

Violence.

Drugs and Alcohol.

A recent survey of Jefferson City middle school-age students said those were their top-five topics concerns.

Saturday, more than two dozen young people went to Lincoln University for the first Cole County Youth Day.

“We are doing this event to give youth a voice in our community,” organizer Susan Cook told the News Tribune. “We have so many issues that we always ask parents and adults what we can improve in our community, that we rarely get to talk with the youth.”

The topics were discussed in small groups, for about 10-15 minutes each session, with the pre-teens and young teenagers approaching the questions in what Cook called “different, creative ways.”

In the “Not Being Treated Fairly” group, the youth were asked to put blank sticky note on the sheet with the topic they most wanted to discuss — School, Home, Authorities and others.

“Be honest,” Christopher Sutton of the Boys and Girls Clubs of the Capital City encouraged one group. “We’re going to use this information … to share your voices with some community leaders.

“There are no wrong answers.”

One girl told Sutton and co-leader Larry Henry her “parents always take (the) step-siblings’ side” in family disputes.

Another said: “My Mom hogs the TV remote. And when she says she’ll be done in five minutes, she means an hour.”

A third girl reported: “I’m home, minding my own business, and my mom comes home with new clothes — for my sister.”

She said there aren’t too many clothes in her closet right now, because “I’m getting taller and older.”

None of the youth wore name tags.

Instead, they were identified by a letter and number.

Henry, a city councilman and director of Cole County’s Alternative Court activities, said the lack of names gave the youth some comfort level that their names wouldn’t be attached publicly to something they said.

“It sets it up as a survey forum,” he explained. “(We will) compile that information and figure out how we can best fit some of these needs — and include the parents in on these discussions and topics also, because a lot of times they may not know what their kids are going through.”

In a group about violence, one boy said a way to reduce violence is “getting people to show more grit,” standing up and speaking out.

He told group leader Lucia Kincheloe he’s “writing a letter to the principal, because I see this kid constantly being picked on.”

Laura Morris, of the Council For Drug-Free Youth, led the group on bullying.

About “160,000 kids stay home every day for fear of being bullied,” she said. “It is a very prevalent problem.”

And it isn’t just kids who bully other kids.

One girl said a teacher sends one boy with disabilities to the hallway when he asks to use a computer while “the one second we ask to get on a computer, we can do it.”

Bullying always has existed, Morris acknowledged, but today’s “violent society” makes it more wide-spread.

“Back in our day, without all the technical things that we have and the technology that we have (now), we were bombarded by maybe 200 messages a day,” Morris reported. “Kids nowadays are bombarded by about 8,000 messages a day.

“They’re bombarded by a lot of negativity — it’s a very negative world.”

Thomas Jefferson Middle School Principal David Bray agreed.

“I think it is the amount of information that’s out there,” he told the News Tribune. “I didn’t have to sort through as much information as what these kids have to sort through.”

Sutton said it’s extremely important for youth leaders to listen to today’s kids.

“We’re a different generation,” he noted. “What we experienced growing up is drastically different.

“This is a technological age and a social media age — and there’s so many things competing for our youth that we want to make sure we’re providing a platform so they can tell us what it is they’re seeing in this world.”

Cook was disappointed with the small turnout.

“I had hoped for around 150-200 kids” and not the 25-30 that had arrived in the event’s first two hours, she said. “I’m definitely hoping that when we do it next year we learn from this year.

“The first year you do an event is always difficult so hopefully next year will be a lot bigger and better.”

Parents were treated to Community Resource Booths on the second floor of LU’s Jason Gymnasium, “where they get to learn about all the different resources and programs in our community that their kids can be involved with.”

The adult volunteers generally came because they’re interested in kids.

“We need to give youth a voice in our community,” Cook said, and “allow them to talk about issues and problems they have before they grow up and become even bigger community issues. …

“We’re hoping this evolves into an initiative we call the ‘Youth Council,’ a subsidiary of the City Council but for youth to talk about these kinds of issues and become leaders in their communities.”